Merry Christmas 2014 and Happy New Year 2015

Another year is rapidly drawing to a close.

I am so glad we have modern technology to keep us connected.

The biggest change for us was putting Keelie and Kyle in a private school as they entered Second Grade and Kindergarten, respectively at Independence Christian School. Kori had been doing a great job of homeschooling, but with the kids having the personalities they do, actively homeschooling both of them right now was not looking like the best option due to a combination of factors. They have taken to their formal classrooms well. It helps that they’ve long been good readers and have had classroom activities before. The unexpected expense has been a challenge to accommodate, but we were blessed by radio station KSFH 95.9 FM and the school with a half-off voucher.

 The first day of school for the 2014-2015 year! It's important to have a superhero shield.

It’s been about two and a half years since Kori underwent Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery and after many appointments to test and adjust the settings of her electronic pulse generator, well... we’re going to resume the treatments she was getting before DBS.

Since she’s not homeschooling, Kori has taken to selling beautiful inexpensive jewelry. I’m shocked at how affordable the items are, given how pretty they are. Pretty items sold by a pretty lady!

In late April, we traveled to see my paternal kin in Ohio and to attend services for my Uncle Bob. That was quite memorable and it was great to see everyone. Although traveling with kids always adds some difficulty, I was glad the kids were able to meet more of their relatives.

We returned to the start of “emergency” work in our master bathroom. It literally started up on the day we arrived home from Ohio, before we arrived home. It was needed because of shoddy work by the folks who attempted to flip our house before we came to be here meant that water was leaking out of the shower into the wall separating the bathroom and bedroom. Since the shower and the wall needed to be replaced, we took the opportunity to install a walk-in bathtub instead of a new shower. It’s very popular. I don’t think the kids have used the bath in “their” bathroom since we got the walk-in bath in ours! The bath isn’t just for relaxation, it is a practical matter. Nobody has to step over a low wall to get into it.

The kids have both been doing gymnastics practices one day per week and both did soccer this year - and played on the same team, along with two of their good friends. Keelie also did dance but finished with the end of the last school year and Kyle took karate lessons most of the year from Moo Yea Do (usually in the presence of the Grand Master himself, Tiger Yang!) but is either finished or taking a break. I don’t know which yet.

I have been podcasting about Disneyland with my friend Lynn and we’ve been collaborating on another project I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. Don’t worry – you can be sure I’ll tell you about it – over and over again! - when the time is right.

Earlier, I mentioned a funeral. In upbeat news, Kori’s brother Toby married Rory. Kori’s sister Kendra and her husband Steve graciously hosted the wedding at their home – on very short notice and on Halloween! Also, the next generation has started locally on my side of the family as my nephew Blaine married Victoria in a very small ceremony and now they have an adorable infant boy. It’s been fun referring to my sister Kim as a grandmother.

We literally couldn’t make it through the year without the love and support of our friends and family. To each and every one of you, we say “thank you!”

(This is actually from Easter.)

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Since this officially serves as our Christmas card and letter to all…

~Merry Christmas~

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” – The Gospel According to Saint John the Apostle, Chapter 1, Verse 14, New International Version

May your 2015 be one of happiness, peace, health, and prosperity.

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Thanks for stopping by and checking out this latest update. Please keep in touch and let us know how you are doing. You can leave a comment here or contact us a KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com or find Ken on Facebook or Kori on Facebook.

–Ken, for the Pellmans of Anaheim  
December 2014
KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com

Summer 2012 Already?!?

Hey everyone! How are you doing? Facebook and Twitter continue to be the place to go to keep current on what we’re doing, but I do like the blogging format. The problem is, the moment I start working on a blog and the kids see the pictures, they climb onto my (Ken’s) lap and start making requests of who they want to see in pictures.
However, the kids have been staying with my family (for good reasons I will get into in another update), so I was able to throw this together without having to stay up extra late at night.
Let’s see… where did we leave off?

Ah yes, it was around Christmastime when we last gave an update. Living close enough to Disneyland to see and hear the fireworks does have some advantages. Kori and my mother (and anyone else who comes along) have been taking Keelie and Kyle to Disneyland on a fairly regular basis during the week. Those kids have no idea how spoiled they are!
Here’s Grandpa Pellman making a visit in January.

Kori and the kids meet up with some other mothers with young kids, often weekly. Here’s Kyle at a meet-up where they were learning about Groundhog Day. The day, not the movie.

It’s like looking at me [REDACTED] years ago.
Whenever the kids are sitting peacefully together, it is a good idea to capture the moment with a picture…

… and, perhaps, a commemorative coin from the Franklin Mint.
Every year, the kids have special Easter outfits. Here’s Kyle’s… such a ham…

And Keelie’s…

This was NOT Keelie’s Easter clothing…

…but she is wearing Kyle’s tie.
Big doings around here included the arrival, in May, of Cousin Aubrey, born to Kori’s sister Kendra and Kendra’s hubby Steve. Aubrey joins Cousin Lainey, who was born just nine days before Kyle. Kyle, remember, adores Lainey, and so does Keelie. Keelie is happy to have a younger girl in the family. Kyle is happy to have a cousin his age. They are now happy to have a baby around, too.
Here’s Kori with new arrival Aubrey…

And proud grandparents, Bill & Pam (known to my kids as Granddaddy and Puma.)

Yup, Keelie is happy to have another younger girl in the family…

I think this is the moment at which Kyle realized he was no longer the baby of the family…

He’s no longer the baby, but yes, he loves holding his Cousin Aubrey.

One thing making life a lot easier now is that Kyle is pretty much completely potty-trained, even though he’s still not even three years old. Yay!!!
Kori and the kids get together regularly with Kendra and her kids. In addition to that, going to Disneyland regularly, and meeting up with the local moms & kids regularly, Kori and the kids will regularly visit my family in Pasadena, and sometimes I will join them after work. We visit Puma & Granddaddy along with Kori’s other siblings, and Kori and I have been meeting up with a small group from our church every two weeks or so. So, we’re keeping busy.

Keelie made out like a bandit for her fifth… FIFTH(!)… birthday in June, enjoying a special day at Disneyland Kori worked hard to put together for the ladies. They wore matching purple shirts Kori made.

Granddaddy took that beautiful picture. Keelie also had a “small” family-only party at our house… which meant 25 people.
And here’s Keelie wrestling with Cousin Macon for some grub…

I have been appearing as a guest from time to time on The Sweep Spot podcast. So if you want to hear me rattle on about Disneyland, you can do so by listening to the episodes on which I’ve appeared.
Thanks for stopping by and checking out this latest update. Please keep in touch at let us know how you are doing. You can leave a comment here or contact us a KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com

From Christmas to Easter

You know the story… Facebook and other things like that have sucked the life out of blogs like this one. But I still want to keep blogging here. I find it a convenient way to chronicle our lives in a linear way.
Things have been mostly uneventful. Kori and I are raising our two little kids, and anyone who has done that knows that pretty much takes up life for many years.
And when I start to edit pictures to include, Keelie will climb onto my lap and demand to watch videos and see pictures.
So I don’t get to do these updates as often as I’d like.
I’m still working for the same place, and that’s good. There are good people there who do good work. Kori has become very skilled at couponing and bargain shopping. It has become a sort of hobby for her. It’s amazing how she can walk out of a store with bags full of merchandise, having paid maybe a couple of bucks out of pocket… and it is all legit. And, of course, she’s still doing everything else that she does to keep the household running.
We’re starting with some pictures from Christmas 2010…

Grampa Pellman keeps the kids entertained…

It’s great when we visit family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins keep the kids entertained and safe. It gives us a bit of a breather.
Cousin Macon and Uncle Mike keep Keelie in line…

Aunt Vicki and Cousin Blaine…

Christmas Eve at Auntie Kim’s was great. Christmas morning started out great at home…

Keelie is growing so fast!

Keelie and Kyle love to spin in these chairs at Puma & Granddaddy’s…

These outfits the kids are wearing were gifts from Uncle Steve’s parents… how nice was that???

Later in January, we met up with our friends Lynn, Erin, and Luke in the evening at Disneyland. Keelie and Luke bonded…

To this day, Keelie talks about her buddy Luke and can identify his state, Utah, on the map. Lynn and I need to discuss a dowry.
And now a picture of our messy eater…

There have been a few times lately when Keelie has fallen asleep before we could do our nighttime routine…


Again…

What are little brothers for?

So next time, Keelie found another place to fall asleep…

I’m surprised Kyle didn’t paint Keelie up with his food the way he did himself…

Then, of course, there are times when they mess things up together. After noticing it was too quiet, we discovered why… the kids had emptied the full paper shredder…

That brings us to Easter. Here’s a nice family portrait…

But it wasn’t the only picture Granddaddy Keel took…

And this one is very telling…

The kids love to color, especially with their Aunt Kirby…

And they both love their Cousin Lainey. Kyle and Lainey are thinking of taking their act on the road…

Kyle strikes a pose…

Keelie in her Easter dress…

Keelie tells Puma and Granddaddy what’s up…

Kyle and his Daddy…

Thanks for stopping by to read. You can comment here or contact us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com. You can also follow me on Twitter @pellman.

We’re Enthusiastic

We’re enthusiastic about The Enthusiast Enthusiast.

"The Enthusiast Enthusiast is a podcast for people who are highly interested in people who are highly interested in a particular activity or subject. Both educational and entertaining, each Episode is centered around a new enthusiast and their hobby of choice."

The most recent edition is on Disney enthusiasts. Ms. Jessica Lee Williamson boiled down a couple of interviews of us into a 15-minute podcast and some pictures. It includes how we met, and my teenage fixation on my first true love... Splash Mountain! Keep an ear open for a very good description of "Disney magic" by Kori.

Spring 2010

Okay, so the updates here are getting less and less frequent. Maybe it is because we’re out painting the town red. No, that can’t be it. Maybe it is because we’re too busy Facebooking, or because whenever I try to work on an update when Keelie is around, she demands to get between me and the screen and then “requests” to see pictures of certain people.

But here we are… another update. And looking back since our last update, I am reminded what boring lives we lead. That’s a good thing, I suppose. To give you an idea, one of the most exciting things in the past couple months was that the bank contacted us to propose a refi of our mortgage; they covered the closing costs. It made a lot of sense and lowered our payments. See – not much excitement. But there are plenty of cute pictures!

We celebrated the anniversary of our first date - which is close enough to Valentine’s Day that it covers that, too – by going to Pasadena. We spent time with Grampa Pellman and Grandma Kathleen.

Keelie is at an age where she really enjoys climbing around on stuff in a park. She also requests to see various family members.

Keelie surveys the park, plotting her domination…

Kyle takes a more relaxed approach…

“These aren’t the droids you are looking for.”

From there, we went over to my mother’s. Kori and I escaped to have dinner at Gus’s BBQ in my home town, South Pasadena. Even though I’d been by the place thousands of times over the years, I’d never been there. I think my parents might have gone there eons ago and weren’t impressed. However, I’d read that the place had been completely overhauled. Sure enough, the place was doing a lot of business, but they still managed to give us a booth table (meaning a table for four) so that we could sit next to each other on our anniversary. I enjoyed the meal - and especially the company, of course.

I don’t think we’ve been on a date since. Can’t imagine why…

Oh… right.

Keelie was inspired by the Winter Olympics. No kidding…

However, I’m not sure what this arrangement is about…

Perhaps she is taking care of her doll the way Mommie takes care of Kyle?

Most indoor pictures we get of Keelie these days have her squinting, because she knows when the flash is coming. But we did manage to snap this one…

But, of course, she usually has food on her face and resists us when we try to wipe it off. Kyle, unlike his sister when she was his age, is a drooler, so he always has a bib.

Naptime…

Keelie’s godparents, “Oma” and “Opa”, spent some time with us Easter weekend. They live next door to Puma & Granddaddy, so we spent some time in the park across the street with them before dropping in on the Keel house.

They gave Keelie a stuffed bunny, and she was convinced it was THE Easter Bunny. She even tried to feed it the carrot we left out for the Easter Bunny. We had to explain to her that it was a doll of the Easter Bunny, like she has dolls of Mickey Mouse, Minnie, etc.

Mommie and Kyle share a moment when he’s awake…

And here is Daddy and Kyle sharing a moment while Kyle naps…

If only Kyle would stay asleep like that through the night. He’s done it once or twice in his life, so we know he can. He’s no dummy… he works it so as to get the most interaction with Mommie throughout the night.

He’s got the Pellman eyes, to be sure. The lids hide under another flap of skin.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for…

NUDITY!

Yeah, we finally got the bathtub fixed. We’d been using our shower all of the time for the kids, as the bath wasn’t getting hot water. But a couple of days of professional work and $$$$ changed that. Exciting stuff, huh?

Thanks for stopping by and looking over our annoyingly “proud parent” pictures. Leave a comment here or e-mail us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com and let us know how you are doing.